Napkin Notes and Girly Drinks
by poisons
Summary: One night at the Snakehole, Ann has lots of feelings and April just wants her to stop talking.
1. Chapter 1

Drunk Ann is the worst Ann. Sober Ann never really shuts up and sometimes even now, when there's no one else around, she'll try chatting with April about whatever it is Ann talks about, she really doesn't know, but the last time it happened it only took three seconds of April glowering at her to make her give up. April timed it.

It doesn't work on drunk Ann because drunk Ann just doesn't care. She says things like, "I know you have to keep up your I'm-April-and-I-hate-everyone act but I know it's an act, okay," and then she just keeps going. She even gets up and follows April when she goes to the bathroom to hide and even tries to walk into the stall with her because she's so stupid when she's drunk and when she stands at the door to April's stall and keeps talking, April decides she hates the Snakehole and she hates alcohol and she hates Leslie for making her celebrate anything with them ever. Okay, she doesn't hate Leslie because Leslie is cool except for this thing where she's always telling Ann that she's a beautiful sparkly unicorn fart or whatever she says.

Some guy has dumped Ann. Probably because he's a normal human being and realized he didn't want to make out with Ann the sparkly unicorn fart for the rest of his life.

April stalks to the bar and screams at the bartender over the music and club noise to give her Snake Juice before she sets herself on fire, and it's gone seconds after it appears in front of her. She orders another one and takes it to one of the couches in the corner. Ann is still following her and still talking.

She tries not to actually listen when Ann says, "Maybe I should try girls, you know," but no matter who she's talking to she is immediately interested whenever someone thinks about going gay. Then Ann makes that face she gets when she's said something stupid, even for her.

"How long have you known you were a lesbian?" April says, and an idea clicks into her brain, popping like ice cubes under running water.

"I'm not - I didn't say I was -" Ann blurts out, making those little huffy noises that people make when they really want you to believe what they're saying. She doesn't finish her sentence, just sips from her drink again.

"It makes sense though. You know a lot of lesbians like self-sabotage all their relationships with men because they don't really want to be with them."

"Self-sabotage?"

"Yeah, like you screw stuff up on purpose and you don't even realize you're doing it."

"Yeah, I know what it is, okay? I'm not gay." Ann sounds upset and nervous. She tries to stand up to leave, probably to go tell Leslie how much she loves her for the eight hundredth time today because that's totally what a not-lesbian would do, but she stumbles and falls back onto the couch so April has to act fast, has to push harder.

"Don't go," she says. "I know it's hard to come out here. Pawnee. This place sucks."

"Oh my god, you're actually being nice to me over something that's not even real."

April sighs. "I know I'm like, really mean to you all the time. I mean it is kind of an act." She adds, "Like you said," because Ann loves being right.

"Why do you do that?" Ann asks, kind of quiet. Quiet for the Snakehole, anyway, which means that she's not quite screaming into April's ear.

"I don't know," April says. "I just do. I guess at first I was like, going through some stuff." Like you kissing Andy, she thinks, and she's still so bitter about it. "I didn't realize you were going through some stuff too."

"You could have talked to me about it."

"So you are a lesbian?" April says after a second.

"God, April! No," Ann replies. "I meant you could have talked to me about the other stuff."

April bites her lip. "Not really."

"Why not?"

April rolls her eyes, dramatically. "'Cause it was about you, okay?"

Ann freezes, her drink hanging halfway to her lips, one of those dumb looks on her face. "What do you mean?" she asks, and April could splash the drink in her face, how is she missing this, the I-act-like-I-hate-you-because-I-really-like-you thing?

It's time to get serious. April leans in but Ann holds her hand up, saying, "Whoa. Whoa. April."

"What?" She can't stop herself from sounding annoyed. Mostly with Ann but with herself, too, because it's game over before she really even got started. She wasted all this time talking to Ann. She could have been doing something way more fun like drinking out of the toilets.

"You're married," she says. "To Andy?" Like April would ever, ever forget that. God.

"Yeah, and you just got dumped. So what?" She lets it hang in the air for a second just to let it sting, let the loneliness really sink in like venom. Ann actually goes a little pale, her mouth twisting down all sad like she's never ever going to find a new guy in like two days.

The second time April leans in, Ann doesn't stop her.

It's actually kind of nice. The taste of all those girly drinks Ann's been slamming back all night is on her parted lips, and god, drunk kissing is great. Ann tries to set her drink on the table next to the couch but ends up spilling it on the floor, the sound of breaking glass lost in the thump of the music and the laughter and screaming all around them. It takes like forever for Ann to actually move her lips, catching April's bottom lip between her teeth, gently and when Ann stops talking April guesses she isn't so terrible. She pushes her tongue past Ann's lips, and she feels Ann make this small noise but she can't hear it, swallowed up by lame music, and pushes back. Her hands frame April's face, fingers curling slightly around the nape of her neck, at the base of her skull, getting tangled in her hair and who knew stupid drunk Ann would actually be kind of a good kisser?

April pulls away and Ann gets that dumb look on her face again until April takes her hand and leads her to the door at the back of the club. She wonders if anyone from work has seen them. She knows Andy hasn't because he'd be hovering over them in a second, that wide-eyed, open-mouthed look on his face like he's just seen that football guy, like, flying by on an angel Li'l Sebastian.

Ann opens her mouth and starts to complain about the cold but April kisses her again, snaking her arms under Ann's unbuttoned cardigan, pulling her close, pressing their bodies together. Ann is making all these little sounds now, she sounds so needy which is probably why that guy dumped her since making out with her isn't so bad.

April doesn't let her go until Ann feels her phone buzz in her pocket. Leslie is looking for them, worried that April has finally done something horrible like lock her in a dumpster or throw her cell phone in a storm drain.

Ann goes into the bathroom before they leave. April knows she's drunk enough that she might completely forget about this, like that time she and Leslie were going around City Hall loudly trying to figure out who Ann had made out with the night before. She grabs a napkin from the bar and writes on it, _I was the person you made out with last night. April._ As they're all leaving, she slips it into Ann's purse.

She imagines Ann finding it in her purse tomorrow morning, making that face for the entire drive to work.


	2. Chapter 2

Every time Ann goes out on a weeknight, it makes her feel old but she still promises herself she will never, ever do it again. Well, she promises that but she also promises that if she does she'll at least drink some water every once in a while.

She stumbles out of bed and into the shower, a thought nagging her at the back of her head or maybe it's just the hangover.

Or maybe it's a thought. Did she make out with someone last night? Did she at least have the sense to get his number? Or the sense to lose his number if he was a really crappy kisser or looked hotter in the dark than he really was? Or the sense not to give him _her_ number if that was the case?

She has a bottle of B12 in her medicine cabinet that she decides to put in her purse and bring with her to work to share. No one ever has these when they really need them, although as many times as this has happened maybe she should just leave it in her desk and buy another bottle for her house.

Stepping out in daylight is the worst, and she wonders if she can get away with wearing sunglasses all day.

She goes by the Parks office first to see how Leslie is doing. She's a little embarrassed that everyone seems fine, that they didn't go on a mini-bender on a Tuesday night and come to work in sunglasses. April is giving her a look that's strangely lacking in any of the usual I-come-from-the-fires-of-hell-to-call-you-a-slut-a nd-resent-you-for-kissing-my-boyfriend thing she has and wow, Ann really hopes she didn't do something stupid like forget to button her blouse. She's actually checking when Leslie sweeps her into her office and offers her a huge chocolate chip muffin. Ann actually backs up a little, the smell of chocolate and sugar making her groan.

"Wow. That bad, huh? You didn't make out with anybody, didja?" and it's one of those Leslie jokes that comes at exactly the wrong moment, where she realizes she's the only one giggling about it a little too late, and then her face gets very serious and she goes, "Oh no." But she can't stay serious for too long and starts asking was it good or was it bad and who was it and then tramples right over her mumbled answers that she doesn't remember and starts talking about the campaign and her low numbers and Ann guesses it is kind of a bigger deal than who she did or didn't make out with last night. She tries to listen and decides to take another B12, unzipping her purse and bringing out the giant bottle and a napkin with writing on it. Okay, so she got a number. Maybe that's good.

She feels like she's falling through space as she reads what's written on the napkin. "Oh my god," she says out loud, and Leslie stops mid-sentence and mid-muffin.

"Ann?"

Ann is having trouble breathing. Okay, that's a little over-the-top but there is no way this is true. _I'm the one you made out with last night. April,_ the napkin says, and how would that even work, how would April's head not fall off of her shoulders from rolling her eyes so hard, how would Ann not dissolve into a puddle of acid if they ever - no. This is impossible. "Oh my god," she says again.

"Ann!" Leslie says again. "What is it, what's the matter?"

"Um," Ann replies, trying to think of something to say. "I forgot ... something. I have a report to file."

"You didn't tell me you had a report to file. I would have helped you, I love writing reports," Leslie is saying as Ann is standing up, cramming the napkin back into her purse and struggling with the zipper.

Ann says a little too frantically, "Yeah, but you're trying to focus on your campaign, remember? It's fine, Leslie, I have to go!" She tries to rush out of the office but she only manages a walk that is slightly faster than normal. She feels April's eyes burning into her as she leaves the Parks office and considers leaving Pawnee or maybe Indiana altogether.

She wrestles with the lock on her office door, looking up and down the hall at the people going through their mornings and wonders if April's told anyone. Obviously not Leslie. She didn't see any knowing looks in the office. Andy didn't even look up at her from the table where he was tearing open sugar packet after sugar packet and dumping them in his coffee. If anyone in the Parks office could indicate whether or not April had told anyone, it was Andy. An office that small doesn't allow for secrets. Word would get to Andy somehow. And if Andy knew everyone knew.

"Knew." There was nothing to know. Nothing had happened. Ann had not made out with April. There was just no way. There was just no way April would be able to keep herself from either clawing her own eyes out or just breathing fire on Ann.

She gets into her office, takes the napkin out of her purse and allows herself to stare down at it for fifteen minutes. That's how long it takes her to drink her coffee, check her email and feel generally human on most normal mornings.

How did April get this into her purse? Was it when she walked into the Parks office? It couldn't be. She hadn't gotten up from her desk at all while Ann was there.

It had to be last night. April could have done anything last night and Ann wouldn't know a thing. Obviously. She remembers getting to the Snakehole and Leslie buying her drinks as she talked about Eric dumping her and then she got up so she could leave Leslie alone to maybe go talk to Ben and then she found the nearest person she knew -

April. She was talking to April. It could have happened.

But it didn't. It didn't.

There's a soft knock on her open door and she grabs the napkin and shoves her hands down onto her lap and she knows she looks completely catatonic, looks at best like she was staring down at her empty desk but she just tries to be cool, just greet whoever it is and act like she wasn't just contemplating the mysteries of the universe that are on her desk calendar.

"Hey," the person at the door says, and it's exactly the low, subdued voice that she wants most not to hear right now.

"Hi, April," she says, trying to put on the kind of cheery voice that usually sends April turning around and leaving right away, but what comes out is a sad kind of croak, the kind that only gets April interested, especially when Ann is involved. April takes a few slow steps to the chair on the other side of Ann's desk, and Ann is about to say that she's busy and she really doesn't have time to chat but that's clearly not the case, with the vast empty wasteland on her desk. April lingers next to the chair and presses her lips together and Ann tries not to notice the clear lip gloss making them shine, even under the fluorescent lights in her office.

"Hangover?" April finally asks and Ann can't take it anymore, can't take not asking April what the hell is wrong with her and what she thinks she's doing, so she does, and April says, "Nothing," and Ann holds up the napkin and asks, "So what the hell is this?"

"Um, it's a dumb little note I left you because I didn't want you to forget about making out with me."

She expected a thousand horrible April responses but not something like that. "So we ... We really did," Ann says, and her breath leaves her.

"Yeah. It was actually kinda cool," April replies, and Ann wouldn't know who the hell she was talking to, except April starts snapping her gum and takes a retractable pen out of the cup on Ann's desk and clicks it in and out, again and again and again.

"Cool?" Ann says, her voice small and faint.

"Yeah, that guy's totally lame for dumping you. You're actually a really good kisser."

"Oh. Um. Wow, thanks, I think. But you can't stay with someone just because they're a good kisser." She can't believe she's actually defending a guy for dumping her but there's a lot going on right now that she can't believe and most of it's even weirder than that.

"Sure you can. It's why I married Andy."

"Yeah, about that. Is Andy cool with ... What we did?"

"Andy and I have an open relationship. I get to make out with whoever I want and I can mess around with girls, and he gets to make out and mess around with Eddie Vedder and everyone else on Earth except you. We should make out again."

It's all delivered to her perfectly wrapped up without a note of interest, this stream of information she's not sure she actually wanted to know about April and Andy's relationship. "We could do it right now," April adds like she's saying they could go for sushi for lunch.

"Okay, look," Ann says. "It's a nice offer and I'm glad it was fun for you, but I don't remember it at all and I think that's probably for the best. Can't you just, I don't know, say something horrible to me and leave so I can get to work?"

April sits there, no horrible remark coming. Does she look a little sad? Ann can't tell, but that might be because she's still wearing her sunglasses. "April?" she says and April explodes, her Janet Snakehole voice echoing throughout the hallways. "You have broken my heart, Ann Perkins! You'll never kiss these sweet lips again!"

She storms out of Ann's office and now Ann knows the reason for the delay. Several people are standing outside her door, looking in at the woman wearing sunglasses and putting her head on her desk. "Good," she says to herself. "That's good. I love having an audience on days like this."


	3. Chapter 3

April's a little bummed because it might have been a little too soon to break out Janet Snakehole. Everything was great this morning. Hungover Ann is far superior to sober Ann and drunk Ann. Hungover Ann who just found April's napkin note is the best Ann.

But now it looks like her fun game that would have totally destroyed Ann is over before it even got started. Ann will think she was putting on a show just to mess with her, which is kinda true. But she'll probably also ignore anything April tries that's related to the making out thing. She'll have to find another way to destroy Ann. Or maybe she'll just make out with Andy and play X-Box.

When they get home that night she tells Andy everything. He's turned on the X-Box and he's probably going to play until he falls asleep. "Hey, babe," she says. "Remember how I told you you could make out with pretty much everyone in the world except Ann?"

"Uh-huh," Andy says, punching a dude until his face explodes.

"And how you said I could make out with any girls I wanted to?"

"Um," Andy says, and his face explodes because he missed when he was going for another dude, and the dude punches his face instead. "Yeah."

April chews her gum a few times, takes it out of her mouth and stretches it between her fingers. "I made out with Ann tonight," she says finally.

Andy's eyes are the widest they've ever been, his mouth stretched open into an excited O and April wonders if his real face was to going to really explode. "Wow, babe, that's really awesome! But, uh, I thought you hated Ann."

"I do," April replies. "I hate her so much."

"Ah," Andy says in the voice he uses when he thinks he understands what's going on. "So you decided to show her how much you hate her by ... making. Out. With her?"

"It was like the only way to get her to stop talking to me." April wraps her gum around her finger. "She really freaked out about it today."

"Oh, dude!" Andy brings his hand to his forehead, looking again like he's finally figured it out. "I thought Ann was straight!"

"She is. She couldn't resist me." April can feel her lips quirking up and tries to stop herself before it becomes a full-on smile.

"Like no one alive could resist you, babe," and April says, "Yeah?" and they have sex on the couch, the sound of Andy's face exploding blasting on the TV because he forgot to pause the game.

As she's walking with Andy into the office the next morning, she thinks next time, if she bothers, she'll wait to let it boil over slowly. But Ann is in Leslie's office and when she comes out and sees April, she freezes and stops talking mid-sentence. It's her favorite thing Ann does, made even better because Ann's still freaking out about it. The making out thing. She wonders if Ann ever remembered anything or if April's word is still all she has to go on.

"So I'll see you tonight, right?" Leslie's saying, but Ann is looking at April like she can't look away, and April's looking right back and it's amazing, watching Ann decide whether it's best to run away or stand completely still, like April is some horrifying predator. She can feel a smile trying to edge onto her face and if she did smile, Ann would probably burst into flames right here in the office. As April is trying to tone down the evil she feels building behind her eyes, Leslie says, "Ann?"

"Yep! Tonight!" Ann says a little too loudly, that fake bright tone in her voice that always makes April want to puke. She doesn't look away from Ann, though, and Ann eventually leaves the office without another word.

Leslie frowns and looks over at April, and April turns to her. "Ann's been acting a little weird lately," Leslie says suspiciously, and Ann remembers her text the other night, asking if April was finally carrying out some horrible plan for revenge. "April, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"She seems like the same old awful Ann to me," April says. Leslie's face tells April that she knows something is up but she doesn't know what it is.

"April," she says in the closest thing she has to a stern voice that really just sounds like she's being very insistent but still nice. "I know you and Ann have your problems -"

"Yes. The problems are that I hate her because she's awful."

"_But_," Leslie continues, "she's very important to me and this department and my campaign."

April feels a little bit of guilt, which she hates even more than Ann. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm not asking you to be her best friend."

"Yeah," April says, and all the evil in her blood feels like it's being replaced by warmth and sunshine which makes her feel gross. "I won't bother Ann anymore. At work. Around you." Leslie gives her that knowing smile, that _what am I going to do with you_ smile that would make her start plotting murder if it were anyone other than Leslie. She looks down at her nails and thinks about filing them into sharp points. Another idea seeps into her brain, and the warmth and sunshine starts to give way again, and she knows how she can pull this off, still have fun being horrible to Ann while not tipping Leslie off at all. "Maybe I'll ask her to lunch or something."

"Oh, April." Leslie sounds like she's about to cry, and April can see Donna raising her eyebrow, her mouth twisting into a smirk. "You have grown so much in just few short years -"

April can feel a hug coming on, so she covers her ears and closes her eyes and says, "Don't." When Leslie goes back into her office, sniffling, April glowers at Jerry and Tom and thinks about getting some of those red contacts and wishes there were some that could light up.


	4. Chapter 4

Ann finds herself thinking that April can't be that great of a kisser if she doesn't remember anything about their encounter that may or may not have happened. Then she tells herself to stop thinking about it and stop calling it an encounter. It was just April being April, making out with someone she hates just for fun. That's all. If it even happened. Which it probably didn't, because making out with someone you hate just doesn't make sense, even for April.

She's in her living room, her crocheted afghan and several huge binders in her lap. She's trying to put together a list of public health talking points for Leslie but she can't focus at all because she can't get all this crap about April out of her head. She's been trying to get April to like her for years, because she has never been so hated just for existing and it's kind of sore spot. She doesn't know whether she's trying to prove to April or to herself that she really is a perfectly likeable person and a good friend.

Either way, she now has April's attention. She never thought she would miss the days when a good response from April was sullen silence, but she regards those memories with a surprising fondness now. Her phone buzzes as she is taking refuge in one particularly nice sullen silence when April didn't even scowl at her. It's Leslie, and Ann answers, hoping for good campaign news.

"Ann, guess what!" Leslie says, and Ann doesn't even get a chance to open her mouth before Leslie barrels ahead and says, "I really wanted to help you with the public health fact sheet but this outreach event got a little out of hand and now there are a lot of puppies and a lot of pee on the floor of the senior center so I talked to April and she said she'd be happy to come help you out! Isn't that great?"

"April?" Ann cringes at the sound of her own voice, like Leslie is talking about sending a horde of mongooses to her house and not a surly 20-something vampire in a cardigan.

"Don't worry, Ann, Andy said he would stay and help with the puppies! So no awkward moments, right? I think this is good, like April's finally coming around!"

"Leslie -"

"Okay, great! She's on her way now! Bye, Ann! Sir! Sir, no, this isn't actually a toilet!" Leslie ends the call and April is on her way to Ann's house. This can go one of two ways. They will work together like two normal adults or April will do her best to antagonize her. But Ann is kidding herself. This will only go one way.

She finds April in her phone contacts and dials the number she hasn't called since April was house-sitting for her. "What?" she answers. All the words Ann had neatly planned out fall from her head and she opens her mouth and no sound comes out. "Ann?" April says. Ann expects her to ask if she got laryngitis or something in that pleased tone she gets whenever Ann has a stroke of bad luck, but April says nothing else.

"Uh," she finally croaks out, "hi, April."

"Hey."

"It's really nice of you to volunteer to come help me with this but I've actually got a pretty good handle on it, so -"

"Really? Have you finished it?"

"Well, no, but -"

"Bummer. Because if Leslie was going to come help you it means you need at least four normal human people to get it done."

"April. There is no reason for you to come over. I have everything under control, okay?"

"Come on, Ann, don't make it weird, alright?"

It's such a reasonable thing for April to say that Ann is shocked into silence. Maybe she is making it weird. Maybe if anything happened it was just one stupid thing that happens when one person decides to make out with another person when they've both been drinking. These things happen. Just because they apparently happen to Ann with an alarmingly high frequency is no reason to completely avoid someone who is acting friendly toward her for the first time in four years.

"Okay. As long as you promise not to make it weird either."

"Ugh, really?"

"Promise?"

"_Fine_," April replies. "I'll be there soon."

Ann makes it a point to stash all the alcohol in the pantry. She and Leslie usually have girly drinks after a long hard late-night work party, and she had all the ingredients for cosmos ready but no alcohol will pass Ann Perkins' lips as long as April is around, not even something as lightweight as a cosmo. _I am_ not _going to forget another make-out session,_ she tells herself. A moment later, she thinks, _Christ, Perkins, you're not going to_ have _another make-out session._

The tension actually leaves her shoulders after about half an hour because April is, surprisingly, helping her be productive, and it turns out that four people was an overestimate on April's part because they're totally finished after about an hour and a half. Plenty of time for cosmos if this were a Leslie and Ann work party.

"Thank you so much, April," Ann says as she's saving files and closing her computer, knowing that the best way to get April to leave is to start being nice to her. "I would have gotten like no sleep if you didn't come over."

"Yeah, just imagine how much _two_ competent people could have gotten done!" April replies, sending that smile and lilting voice right back to her, but rolled around in spiders and evil, dipped in antifreeze and cat hair.

Ann was expecting it and was even planning for it, but it's been hard not to take things personally the past few days. "Oh my god, can you not be the April Ludgate Show for like one night?" she says, and it was exactly the wrong thing to say because she will never ever beat April at this game. She shouldn't even care about beating April at any game at all but one barb is all it takes to set her teeth on edge, to give her this caffeine headache feeling that makes her want to tear stuffing out of pillows, rip fact sheets to shreds. "You come over here and tell _me_ not to make it weird when that's all you've been doing!"

"Wow, Ann. Is there something you've been thinking about non-stop for two days?"

Ann takes a breath. "If anything happened -"

"You mean if you made out with me?"

"_If_ I made out with you -"

"You did."

"- you know I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been drinking."

"You sure about that?"

If this were a Leslie and Ann work party they would have each had one cosmo, toasted another great night of work and talked about the campaign and Leslie and Ben's break-up and everything would have been fine. She would have hurt for Leslie because she's running for office, the first step to the really big things she's been dreaming of since she was a kid, while she's going through a break-up that's even more painful because it's so obvious she and Ben are still so into each other. Leslie would have told her how amazing she is, would have compared her to some obscure and maybe not particularly attractive animal and Ann would have felt valued and loved and maybe it would have taken longer to sink in because it's always hard to feel valued and loved when you've just been dumped, but she would have gone to sleep knowing that it would get easier tomorrow and the day after that.

But this is an April and Ann work party, and they haven't even had a drink because the cosmo ingredients are locked up and she is so angry and April is kissing her again or maybe for the first time and it's so weird, being mad and kissing someone but it's much, much better than trying to play the April game where she just dares you to be as terrible as you can be and no matter what you do, you lose. It's much better than that because as abrasive and awful as she is when she's talking and even when she's not talking, April is a great kisser, her lips gentle and minty, her thumb stroking softly over Ann's cheek. Whenever Ann's in the room with April, it's quiet but there's a tension that's always ready to snap. Right now it's quiet, just the sound of April's mouth on hers, and Ann could almost relax again.

April pulls away. "Have you been drinking, Ann?" she asks, looking directly into Ann's eyes in that unnerving way she has, the way she stared her down in the Parks office, the way that makes Ann want to leave even though it's her house and her couch. Her fingers are still tracing slow circles on Ann's cheek and it's such an electric moment, shivers pulsing with awkwardness and want and _oh my god,_ Ann thinks, because she wants to keep going.

"Oh my god," Ann says, rolling her eyes, pulling away from April and slouching against the couch cushions. "Why did we even ... how did this _happen,_ April?"

"I really, really wanted you to shut up about that guy."

"Who, Eric?"

"I don't know his name because I was trying not to listen to you."

"Trying?"

"You wouldn't leave me alone and I figured if I kissed you, you'd either leave and go find Leslie or I'd be making out with someone and not have to hear you talk about another stupid guy who flaked out on you. You just date really lame guys, and you started talking about trying girls, so I figured why not." There are a lot of feelings Ann's fighting with, but they're all muffled under confusion. Is this what it looks like when April tries to be nice? "And you were actually kind of good at it. And I wanted to try it again. And here we are, I guess."

"Here we are," Ann repeats, and April rolls her eyes and moves closer, draping herself over Ann and kissing her again, wrapping her arms around her and pushing her deeper into the couch cushions and Ann is just surrounded by softness and it's the first time she's felt good in days, so she shoves all those doubts away because she's going to remember this so it might as well be fun.


	5. Chapter 5

Ann still looks at her with fear sometimes, but it's mostly confusion. As long as she doesn't start sending like fond looks or anything gross like that, it's fine.

It's time to implement phase two of her plan. Step one is figuring out what phase two is. She thinks about brainstorming on the whiteboard in the conference room, maybe making a binder. Everyone would find out, though.

Actually, that's pretty good. But she might lose her job, and although it'd be cool because Ann probably would too, she doesn't think she'll find another job that's as not-lame as hers even though it gets pretty lame sometimes. She saw a brochure about the mortician program at Pawnee Community College last time she went there with Andy, but she's not sure she wants to bother with another two years of school.

She pulls the top sheet of paper off her legal pad, where she had written _FUN ANN GAME_ on the top line and had made one bullet mark labeled _phase 2_. She crumples it up and throws it in the trash. Leslie's always talking to her about setting goals and getting organized before a new project, but this isn't what she meant anyway and it's like the best way to make sure April's not having any fun at all.

So she drops by Leslie's office and asks her if Ann showed her the fact sheet they made last night.

"Oh my gosh, you finished it?" Leslie asks. "April, that's great! You and Ann worked together on a project and didn't kill each other, yay!" She's clapping and April sort of flails her hands slowly and echoes, "Yay."

"Did you ever have that lunch? Maybe you should work on public health stuff for the campaign with Ann!"

"I guess that's not a terrible idea," April says. This could be good for her fun Ann game but it could be bad for her continued mental health and freedom from prison.

"Why don't you talk it over at lunch today?" Leslie asks, and that's how she finds herself in the passenger seat of Ann's car, Ann with that nice terrified look on her face.

"You can relax," April says. "I'm not going to try to like make out with you while you're driving or in public or anything."

Ann groans and says, "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Doing what? Giving you awesome girl makeouts?" Ann twitches at that, and April adds, "Besides, I'm doing this for Leslie."

"Okay. Okay," Ann says, more to herself than April. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel as they're waiting at a stoplight.

"God, Ann," April says, "if you're this weird over just making out with someone, do you just drop dead when you have sex with them?"

"Oh my god," Ann says, her grip on the steering wheel tightening. April has to look out the window because she can feel a smile coming on. Ann swerves into the Bluebell Cafe after a few minutes of absolute silence only occasionally broken by Ann opening her mouth and getting ready to say something and then deciding against it. She doesn't look at April at all and only orders a side salad and water and doesn't look at the waitress either. This is amazing.

"Okay," she finally says. "We _have_ to talk about this."

"About what?"

"April," Ann says. She sounds like she's the screaming virgin in a horror movie and April is the serial killer.

"Ann."

"Look, I don't know if this is just you having fun or whatever but it's really ..." She turns her silverware over and over on the table. "I guess making out with other girls -" Her voice gets really low, like she's talking about hardcore anal sex or something. "- just isn't that big of a deal for you but I've never. I just haven't, okay, and now I've done it twice with you. Or maybe just once, I don't know. And I'm kind of the rebound right now and I just - It's just screwing with my head." She finally stops talking, right in the middle of her heartfelt speech full of stupid feelings, and she stops playing with the silverware and looks at April, all that awesome tension and sadness just falling off of her face. "Oh my god. That's it. You're just screwing with my head. Still. I can't believe this." She gulps down her water and slams the glass down a little too hard and gets some looks from other people. "You just ... you're actually going out of your way to do this. You're coming over to my house to do _extra work_ just to screw with me. What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

This is the best. She loves making Ann take off the Ann-the-beautiful-blood-sucking-mosquito mask and just start yelling because no one is ever 100% who they are until they're pissed off and yelling in the middle of a mid-scale restaurant in an armpit of a town like Pawnee.

April presses her lips together and takes a breath. "I want to help Leslie win her campaign and I was expecting to hate every minute of doing extra work with you in your lame house but I didn't. And honestly it's like maybe you're not the worst human being alive. And I just like making out with you, okay?"

Ann plants her elbows on the table, a huge no-no in the second-classiest place in Pawnee and gets a bunch of looks from the people around them again, but she has her face buried in her hands so she can't even see them and be even more embarrassed. "April," she says again like she has a million things left to say but she doesn't say any of them.

"And like maybe Leslie isn't wrong when she's always calling you like a beautiful crystalline snowflake or whatever."

"Stop."

"And you were super nice to me even though I'm always super mean to you. And now I just want to hang out and make out with you more."

The waitress comes with Ann's salad and April's sandwich and she looks concerned. Ann moves out of the way and says thanks, still not looking at either her or April. April eats her sandwich but Ann sits there, looking down at the table through her hands, and when April finishes eating she takes Ann's purse from the chair next to her and pays with one of her credit cards. She asks for a take-out box for Ann's salad and signs the credit card slip when the waitress brings it back.

"Are you gonna cry?" she asks when everything is done. "Did you wear waterproof mascara?"

Ann looks up at her, her eyes dry and mascara still in place, and seems surprised by the empty table, the take out box sitting in front of her where her plate of salad was.

"We should go," April says. "I can drive. If you need to cry for a while."

"No," Ann says. "It's fine. Let's go."

The clock on Ann's dashboard says it's only 12:30. They still have half an hour left on their lunch hour. April is reaching back to put her purse in the backseat when Ann leans over the center console and kisses her, right there in the Bluebell Cafe parking lot, and they would probably getting a lot of confused and maybe nasty looks if Ann's windows weren't tinted. Ann kisses even better when she's feeling desperate, her hands behind April's neck, pulling her closer, grazing April's lips with her teeth before biting them, sharp little sparks of pain making April shiver. It's a little mean and a little sad and maybe this is the best Ann. She pulls away and says, "We still have half an hour left," and Ann smiles a little before April leans down to suck a little bruise onto her collarbones, Ann's hands in her hair, making choked little sounds that sound halfway between a moan and a sob.


	6. Chapter 6

She's on the rebound. And it's fine. It's fine to have fun just after you break up with someone - or, Ann thinks, let's be honest, after someone dumps you - even if that person is still really horrible to you when you're not making out. Even if that person is 15-years-younger-than-her, married-to-her-ex-boyfriend April.

"Oh my god," Ann groans in the silence of her office. She has the door closed and the blinds lowered, the fluorescent lights making her eyes hurt and her skin crawl. Everything feels completely wrong. All she's done this morning is stare at her email inbox as though it has the answers to all of her current problems. Before she knows it, it's noon and Leslie is knocking on her door with two styrofoam containers from JJ's. A waffle lunch with Leslie. This could be what she needs. Leslie has so many huge problems right now that even if talking about them won't make Ann forget what's going on with April, she can a least feel like a normal, capable human being again. Problem solving with Leslie is always therapeutic even when it's frustrating. "Hey," she says, forcing the corners of her mouth up into a smile. The second her mouth opens she is ready to spill it all, confess everything because not talking about this with her best friend or anyone at all hurts. It feels so lonely and what the hell is a rebound good for if it's not fighting back that loneliness while you get used to life without that person who dumped you?

"Hey!" Leslie's voice is so warm and so familiar, so the opposite of cold, strange April that Ann feels some of the tension melt from her shoulders already. "Waffles?"

"Yes," Ann says, and her voice sounds like waffles are the solution to a problem she had been looking everywhere for a solution to. "Please."

"Want to eat in the courtyard?"

She's wary of being anywhere where April might see her, might decide to announce to everyone that they have made out three times now and really, truly force her to leave Pawnee. She wonders if that's been April's plan all along. She brings up the evil pigeons that like to hang out in the courtyard during lunch but Leslie brightens even more and says, "We don't have to worry about that today! There's only one pigeon out there and he looks like a really old one so he might not even try to steal food from us." In the end she can't come up with a good excuse for why they shouldn't eat their waffles in the courtyard, so outside they go. Ann isn't exactly hopeful that April's Ann-in-potential-misery sense will stay dormant today but maybe something nice will happen.

Nothing nice happens. April is nowhere to be seen and Ann is starting to enjoy the prospect of an April-mind-screw-less lunch, so of course Leslie says, "So how was your lunch with April? Productive? Did you come up with any exciting strategies or action plans?" Leslie is vibrating in her seat, so happy that Ann and April are finally getting along that Ann has to add one more lie to the pile.

"Yeah," she says, "it was. It was great." She tries to put some enthusiasm into her voice and hopes Leslie doesn't ask about what they got done at lunch. The one nice thing that happens is that she doesn't and Ann doesn't have to come up with another lie. Leslie just gets that soft look of pride and admiration on her face, sets down her plastic fork and knife and puts her hand on Ann's arm. She grins as she says, "Ann. You are amazing. You are a wise, noble, beautiful baobab tree. I knew April would come around! You are so patient and wonderful -"

She's getting a Leslie compliment, one of the ones that kind of make her feel awkward but always make her day better and more than once have made her whole week feel worthwhile. But right now she feels like she could spend the whole week swimming in an unending stream of Leslie compliments and they would never touch her, never fill up that lonely feeling of never being good enough that's been drowning her the past few days.

Tears fill her eyes and she can't stop them, the taste of maple syrup lingering in her mouth. She can't breathe right because of this feeling that there's something broken inside her that isn't healing properly. Leslie's arms are around her and she's trying to hold everything in, trying to breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth but it's all mixed up.

"Ann?" Leslie's voice is quiet but there's so much concern, running so deep that it twists Ann's stomach even more. "Ann, we should go inside," Leslie says, her voice wavering a little.

But she clings to Leslie, doesn't want to move because if anyone sees her like this, especially April, she doesn't know if she'll be able to keep herself from just dissolving into nothing in the middle of City Hall.

Soon she's exhausted, her eyes raw and burning, her head pounding from the pressure and she's finally just breathing, wrapped up in a Leslie hug that she knows will last as long as it needs to. She feels guilty, knows Leslie has so much going on that she should probably be dealing with instead of taking care of Ann, but it's like their entire world has stopped and it's one of those moments that are so rare now, where it's just them, together and they're going to fix this problem, whatever it is.

Ann has finally caught her breath when Leslie finally says, "Ann. Please tell me what's wrong."

"I -" Ann is ready to say it, ready to tell her everything but it stops before she can say another word. She struggles around the knot in her throat, the fog and the pain in her head. "I -" She's still stuck, not knowing where that sentence can go. "April. And me. There's - we've been ..."

"What happened?"

"She kissed me. I think. And then we kissed again twice and she's still being herself but sometimes she's not, sometimes she acts like a human and it's so screwed up, like she likes me and I think I like her too but then we'll get to a point where it feels like we can just be two people and then. She goes back to normal. And I get so mad and we kiss again and I don't know how this is happening or why she would do this if it weren't for real." Every thought that's been lurking in Ann's head for days is spilling from her lips, thick and sticky and cloying like the taste of maple syrup still in her mouth.

"April?" Leslie's saying, her voice weak. Ann pulls away from her and looks into her face, twisted into a confused frown, her mouth gaping open. "Ann, this is - this is really bad. I - April and Ann? I mean, you, you and April."

Ann's stomach drops to the ground and it feels like her guts are spilling everywhere, every gross day at the hospital roiling in her belly. She wanted to tell Leslie everything but now that she has, she's not sure what she wants Leslie to say about it. Stop? Keep going? She can be happy with April, maybe one day?

"You have to stop this," she says, and Ann's pretty sure that's one of the things she didn't want to hear. She thinks of all the reasons not to stop, how April goes from jagged, pointy, painful thorns and broken glass edges to quiet and soft and sweet so quickly, this part of her that Ann never thought existed. About the thrill of letting go of all the anger she's been holding onto, trying to hide from herself and everyone. About how it just all melts like ice, cool and flowing when April goes from egging her on, pushing her to dig out all the acidic, caustic junk inside her to kissing her in the span of seconds. But she can't say any of it to Leslie because this is April, the mentee who may as well be Leslie's maladjusted younger sister.

"I know," Ann finds herself saying.

"She's married," Leslie says.

"Yeah."

"To Andy."

"Yeah."

"She's a lot younger than you."

Ann closes her eyes and nods.

"She likes messing with people but doesn't know what to do when it goes too far."

Ann opens her eyes. Leslie is looking at her, and Ann knows that that's what this was. Just a game April was playing that's gotten out of hand and now she doesn't know how to back down. That's all.

She feels like she was weighed down, pressed under stones, but now that they're lifted the only thing that was holding her together is gone.

"It has. Gone too far," she says to Leslie, to herself, her voice hoarse and cracking.


	7. Chapter 7

April decides to surprise Ann at her house because surprised Ann lets her tightly-controlled Ann mask slip, lets April work her way in just enough so that she can rip it off and leave Ann all flustered and a little confused.

When Ann opens the door she looks upset already. Her eyes are a little puffy, a little red. "Why have you been crying?" she asks, not letting Ann try to hide it or ignore it.

"Hi, April," Ann sighs, moving to the side to let April come in. April steps inside. Ann's lame house smells like vanilla and cinnamon and there's some stupid movie with some guy with huge teeth playing on her TV. There's a box of tissues on the table and a little pile of crumpled tissues lying next to it. "God, who died?" April says.

Ann sighs and and says, "We need to talk."

April rolls her eyes and replies, "Can we just make out instead?"

"No! April, god," Ann says. She sits on the couch, collapsing against the blanket draped over the back. "That's. That's what we need to talk about, okay?"

"I thought we already did talk about it. You decided making out with me is great and that we should keep doing it."

"Okay, pretty sure I didn't say that -"

"You totally did."

"- but even if I did, I'm out."

"You've said that too."

"Okay, well I'm really done this time."

"Why?"

Ann stutters for a minute, like she just can't believe what April's asking her. "Because - because we just can't do this, okay?"

"That's not really an answer, Ann."

"Then it's because this just isn't good. I'm on the rebound and I'm hurting and I'm not totally convinced this isn't just some grand April game. And you're married and you're younger than me and every time I see you we're fighting and then we're making out but I'm starting to like you anyway." She stops talking, sinking into the couch, her eyes closed and god, April hopes Ann starts crying again. "And that just ... I can't, okay? I don't know whether it's because it's you or if it's because Eric just dumped me or ..." Ann's voice cracks and that's it, she's crying.

April sits down next to her. Her whole body is rigid when April scoots right up next to her and slides her arm around her back. "You're like, way overthinking this," April says. "Some dumb game would be way too much trouble just to have someone to make out with."

Ann lets out this choked little sob, this really ugly sound that makes April's head hurt a little because it's not like fun Ann crying or anything. "Ann?" she says, but Ann doesn't say anything back, just keeps crying. "Listen, um -"

"What the hell is going on?" she finally says, her voice all muddled with tears, and April knows that hot twisting feeling in her throat and her skin is kind of burning, she kind of doesn't want to sit still but Ann's holding onto her now, is gripping her hand like April's the life line and not the quicksand. April freezes. "I don't know if anything I'm feeling is real, like have I just been wasting all my time my whole life in every boring relationship or are you just -" After that, April doesn't understand anything she's saying, everything just one long wavering sound that makes April want to disappear into the cushions more and more every second.

She's pretty sure this Ann is not her favorite. She's never seen her like this before, like every trace of annoying chatty Ann is gone. All that's left is tears and every insecurity nobody but April ever sees, that Ann hides really well from everybody else with all that fake niceness. It's hard to look at her or listen to her but she's so there, something April can't ignore but that she really doesn't want to see.

She doesn't know what to say or do. Normally she'd say something mean but Ann is having all these feelings and it would just be like kicking a puppy and she hates people who hurt animals even more than fake annoying Ann.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she hears Ann whisper and it's like she's cracking now, like Ann is crushing her and her bones are splintering. Her tongue is thick and still in her mouth, her brain a fog and Ann's words echoing in her skull, no sound coming from her lips to meet them. Ann feels boneless against her now, her grip on April's hand faltering and fading.

She could tell the truth right now, leave Ann alone and never say anything to her again. But it would be like every mean thing she'd ever said to her put in a glass bottle and set on fire, thrown at a building that's already been burned down and gutted. This isn't fun anymore. Ann's no fun unless she's being mean right back but this Ann doesn't have anything but sadness and like twenty different insecurities that she's not bothering to protect now.

She rubs Ann's back, her hand trailing down soft fabric, moving over the ridge of her spine, her fingers dipping into the valleys between each bone there. "I'm sorry," she says, and it's even kind of the truth and Ann just holds on tighter and neither of them say anything for a long time, the credits of the stupid big-teeth-guy movie rolling and then the screen is black. April's hand hurts from Ann's man grip but she doesn't move even though she still wants to be anywhere else but at least Ann isn't crying anymore.

Ann sniffles again, and finally says, "I told Leslie."

"What?"

"I wasn't really planning on it." Ann's voice is stuffy and raw, her eyes even redder and her face pained. "It just. Happened. I can't really keep anything from her for too long, I guess."

April moves her hand up and down Ann's back again because she doesn't know what else to do. "What did she say?"

"She said ... sometimes you get into things with people that are a little over your head." April can tell that it's not exactly the truth. It's obvious in the way she says it so carefully, choosing her words so it's not quite a lie but not quite the truth either.

"What did she really say?"

Ann fidgets a little, runs her fingers over April's knuckles. "Sometimes you mess with people. And then take it too far. And then you don't know what to do."

It's exactly the truth but April can't let it be. She feels like Ann's kind of known all along, all the things she's said to April over the past few days, like she was right on the edge of it, looking right at the truth and then looking away."So why didn't you just tell me that?" she asks.

Ann looks at her like it's the wrong question to ask or at least not the one she was expecting to hear. "I don't know," she replies, "I guess I ... didn't really want it to be the truth."

"It's not." She hears Ann draw in a breath, quick and sharp but quiet, a little gasp that sounds hurt and hopeful at the same time.

"I told Leslie we would stop this. I would stop this."

"Well, don't."

Ann shakes her head and her voice sounds a little stronger now when she says, "We have to. April, it's just ... whether you mean to or not, you are messing with my head. Okay? I can't keep being around you and not knowing what to expect. It's making me paranoid and I just lost my mind today when Leslie asked me about you. I can't keep something like this hidden and it's not good for either of us."

Ann is giving her an out. She should feel relieved because her stupid little game can be over and she doesn't have to sit here and with her skin crawling and this creeping vine in her chest strangling her slowly.

But she doesn't. She feels even worse than she did when Ann was crying and she feels like something is being taken away from her and she just wants to dig her claws even more.

She thinks that whatever is here can still be salvaged, thinks about kissing Ann again but then Ann says, "I think you should go," and April can't come up with a good reason why she shouldn't. She drives back to her house, tries to distract herself by watching Andy play X-box, tries to forget about kissing Ann as she's kissing Andy, tries not to think about Ann when they're falling asleep in their bed, his hands wrapped around hers.


	8. Chapter 8

Ann thought that once April closed the door behind her, she'd finally be able to breathe. But it's not happening that way at all.

She curls up in bed and tries not to cry anymore, her head all fractured glass and fluorescent lights. She dreams about vines curling around her, wrapping around the base of her neck, around her thighs, between her fingers. There are thorns tipped with poison and she's standing completely still as they get tighter and tighter, waiting for the poison to get under her skin but the vines just coil around her, the thorns never piercing her skin.

She tries not to think about it as she drives to work. She heads straight to her office, putting off the talk with Leslie that she knows is coming. Avoiding the Parks office where April is sitting at her desk, all thorns and poison behind her shiny brown bangs.

Ann feels hungover, dizzy, like the ground is uneven under her feet, like every single tile on the floors in City Hall was rearranged somehow, like trash was swept under the carpets.

But she gets a text from Leslie asking if she can come over for dinner and to talk about some campaign literature. It feels normal, and normal is so what Ann needs right now. She answers back, _Yes, bring cheesecake._ She knows they probably won't talk about campaign literature. That's fine. That's what she needs.

She makes linguine alfredo and feels like a robot, mechanically measuring and whisking butter and cream and cheese, snipping away at a sprig of parsley with kitchen scissors. She winds the pasta around her fork while Leslie does her best to fill the silence. She does a great job, of course, and between her best friend's chatter, the pasta, the cheesecake and the cosmos Ann starts to feel a little more human, a little less lost, a little less like the world is off-center.

Finally Leslie stops dancing around it and asks her about April. "Did you talk to her yet?"

"Yeah," Ann says, sipping her drink. Leslie watches her face, waiting for more, waiting for Ann to tell her everything worked out but she's not sure she can. Sure, Ann put a stop to it, like she said she would, like she knew she needed to. But there's the problem where nothing feels right anymore, like she stepped out of her life for a few days and came back and every single thing around her was replaced with a not-quite-identical copy of itself. Everything in her house seems to have settled around her the way it's supposed to be. For now, at least.

"How did it go?" Leslie asks quietly.

"Fine," Ann says quickly. Leslie is still looking at her, blue eyes filled with the kind of boundless concern Ann has only ever seen in her face. "I, um," she stammers. "I told April that we had to stop and that it wasn't ... appropriate."

"How did she take it?"

Ann kind of laughs a little, surprising both of them. "She wouldn't listen at first."

"That's April," Leslie says, a sad kind of half-smile on her face. Ann just nods, tries not to think about April's arms around her, tries not to think about the look on her face as she left, the saddest she'd ever seen her. Tries not to think about her lips and the bruise still on her collarbone. "Ann, this is for the best," Leslie adds, and Ann nods again.

After Leslie leaves, Ann pours herself a glass of wine and runs a bath. Her house is cold and the heat isn't helping. She makes the water as hot as she can stand it, sits on the rim of the tub as she watches the tub fill up. She's pulling her sweater over her head and looking at that bruise again, her head spinning with wine and cheesecake and steam when her doorbell rings. She walks through the house, leaving her sweater in the bathroom, the chill in her house bringing out goosebumps all over her skin, so cold her cami may as well be nothing.

She looks through the peephole and her breath catches in her throat when she sees April standing on her porch, looking off to the side with her hands jammed into the pockets of her coat, looking like she doesn't want to be there at all.

Ann doesn't know who she expected to see. The goosebumps on her skin start to fade, replaced by warmth. She opens the door and April says, "Hey," not looking at her, moving past her into the living room.

"Hey," she repeats. "April, you -"

"I was just fucking with you," April says, standing in front of her, her hands still in her pockets, a desperate look on her face. "At first. I just wanted to make it weird and then it got weird and I was gonna stop. But then you were, like, really into it. And then I got really into it and now I don't wanna stop."

Ann breathes in. She feels the chill from outside still lingering around them, mingling with the cold air in her house. It's still for a moment, like the whole room is holding its breath as April steps toward her, tossing her coat to the side, and she almost doesn't know what to do without those surges of anger coursing through her, a sense of calm flowing down like honey, from her lips to the tips of her fingers to the base of her spine, when April's mouth meets hers, standing in the middle of her living room, hands smoothing down her arms. There's no coaxing here, nothing daring Ann to be as mean as she can be, just open and simple, the taste of cranberry juice and mint lingering on her tongue.

She leads April over to the couch and sinks down onto it. April follows, cascading over her slowly, one knee on either side of Ann's thighs, her arms wrapping around the back of Ann's neck as she kisses her again. Ann sweeps April's hair back from her face, her thumbs tracing over her cheekbones. April is twined around her, almost clinging like Ann's going to make her leave again, and the thought makes her tighten her fingers at the base of April's neck, pulling her in. April's hair is smooth between her fingers, her tongue silken in her mouth. Her fingers slide through Ann's hair and she pulls away, tilting Ann's head back and grazing the shell of her ear with her teeth. Her breath is a shock against Ann's skin, stark and hot in the cold of her living room, sending a shudder down through her body, drawing a low moan from her throat. April's lips move against her skin and another shudder rocks through her as she breathes out a small laugh, barely there but so loud in Ann's ear, making her press her nails into the back of April's neck. She turns her face and catches April's mouth again, and she feels herself shaking when April pulls away and looks into her eyes.

"Ann," she says. "You know this is okay, right?"

Ann huffs out a laugh, confused and awkward. She is so not ready for the come out, come out, wherever you are speech. "Yeah, April, I know -"

"I mean, like. Us. This."

"That really isn't clearing anything up."

"Like," she says, casting her eyes down, "who cares if this isn't you or whatever?" It hits her hard, all that uncertainty from days of weirdness that have felt so much longer crashing down around her again. The chill sets in again, the sadness, the loneliness. "Hey," April says, her hands on Ann's face, looking back at her again, holding her gaze. "Just don't let that shit in, okay?"

"You were the one making me feel that way."

"I know." April bites her lip and looks away again, looks at the wall behind the couch, the corners of her mouth pulling down before dipping her head down and resting in the hollow of Ann's neck. "That was ... I was really lame. For doing that. I just wanted to make it weird. I didn't want to make you feel like this." Her breath ghosts against Ann's skin, and Ann relaxes in the warmth on her neck and wrapped all around her.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asks softly after a few moments. "Like, why right now?"

April shrugs. "I don't want you to think I hate you."

Ann sighs, drops her hands down around April's waist, moves them up under her cardigan, her fingers sinking into soft fabric and heat. April kisses her again, her fingers sliding under the straps of Ann's cami, etching a trail down her shoulders, hot and cold swirling together, coming to rest at the small of her back before she unhooks Ann's bra. Ann feels her breathing pick up, echoed in April's breath at the hollow of her neck, moving over her collarbone, teeth grazing over that spot she marked days ago. Ann gasps as she sinks her teeth in, knows she'll see that bruise for days to come and kind of thrills at the idea, sweeps her nails down April's back, moves against skin, and she chokes out, "Stop."

"What?" April snaps, glaring up at her.

"My bed's a lot better for this," she says, and April stands up, pulling Ann with her, running her hands up under Ann's top and lifting it over her head, pushing the straps of her bra off of her shoulders. Ann shivers as April leads her to her bedroom and lies down next to her on her bed, hands all over, gliding over curves and licking down her chest, teeth and lips and tongue like fire on Ann's skin, scorching, seething. She strokes down Ann's ribs with the fingers of one hand, the heat of her mouth searing circles on Ann's breast, tongue tracing around her nipple and the anticipation builds in Ann's throat, between her thighs, and she throws her head back, curls her fingers in April's hair, arches her spine up into April's touch. April catches her nipple in her teeth, and Ann freezes, gasping as April flicks her tongue, hovering on that edge where the promise of pain sends waves of sparks through her. But April flicks her tongue again, draws Ann's nipple into her mouth, and Ann opens her eyes, looks down at April draped across her chest, her eyes closed and her lips on Ann's breast, fingers cupping the mound of flesh and she's beautiful and Ann can't look away but it's like staring into a flame, makes her feel a little too exposed and fragile.

"April," she says, caught between a whisper and a plea, and April opens her eyes, traces another circle around Ann's nipple, holding Ann's gaze again under black lashes as she drags her tongue across the sensitive peak, dusty pink lips sucking at her skin again, gently this time, licks her way back up to that bruise, drops a kiss there before moving up to kiss Ann's lips again, and Ann can't remember the last time she _wanted_ so badly, so wet she can't stand the thought of April teasing her for another second but wants this to last, doesn't want it to ever end.

She sits up abruptly, pulling April back in, surging forward and crushing their mouths together, slipping April's cardigan off her shoulders and pulling her T-shirt off, frustrated at the layers separating their skin, wants to feel every inch of April's skin on hers. April reaches back to unhook her bra and lets it fall off of her shoulders, caught between them when Ann presses up against her, April flat on her back beneath her. April makes a small noise in the back of her throat when Ann kisses her again, the first sound she's made, quiet and high-pitched and it just pulls at Ann, sends her hands roaming down April's body, her fingers at the hem of April's jeans, pushing them off of her hips.

There's a part of her that's telling her she doesn't really know what she's doing, but the sight of April undressing in her bed is enough to help her push that thought out of the way. She knows what gets her off, and that's a good start.


End file.
